anamnesis

The Indian myth Ramayana tells a story of prince named Rama's journey to enlightenment. It's an amazing epic, full of subtle application, the way most myths are, to modern life. At a point in the story, Rama has become king and holds daily court. Pressing issues, judgments and measures come rolling in with the waves of his subject's concerns du jour. Rama bears his role solemnly and with great responsibility. But every morning also, a monkey jumps in through the court window and hands Rama a piece of fruit. It's become such a routine that he hardly acknowledges it, he thanks the monkey and tosses the fruit behind him and gets on with business. As you might imagine, the pile of fruit grows pretty substantial; finally one day they decide to clean up. As they are picking through it, they discover that each fruit contains a jewel. Rama, wrapped in his duties of dispensing wisdom and managing daily affairs, had been tossing these precious gifts without thought. In the course...

In an old martial arts parable, a young student seeks out a master to further his studies. The student, striving to make a good impression, talks about the lessons he has learned from various instructors as the master humbly pours him tea. While the student continues to elaborate on what he has learned, his cup fills up but the master keeps pouring and it starts spilling out on the table. The student jumps up and yells "the cup is already full master, it can't hold anymore!" And the master smiles, setting down the teapot. I've been thinking of Pluto this week. After posting the previous entry it kept tugging at the back of my mind and I knew it had something more to say. So I let it percolate all week and today it finally spit it out; it thought I'd obliterated two subtle points in my broad-stroke overview. The first point Pluto addressed congealed into this: our lives are always full . No matter what stage we are in, our cups are always full. To add or change any...

Well, I warned you I would write about Pluto, and here it be. Each planet is a teacher. Deep in our psyche, archetypes of the planets work in mysterious ways, illuminating patterns and life lessons, and these are coded in stories and myths that reach back for generations. What science took from astrology was merely the physical surface, like strip miners gouging the earth for immediate profit, but it has never found "meaning" in the physical; to find meaning you have to know the stories. And some of our stories have greater meanings and insights into life than any single individual can assemble through haphazard experience or singular introspection. Pluto's stories aren't for the faint of heart, however. It's the planet of death, rebirth, transformation. The alchemy of desire. When Pluto teaches it does so by taking away whatever we think we need the most, whatever we feel defines us. We tumble into the Underworld like Inanna of Sumeria, who was stripped of an att...